Katie Price threatened with jail if she keeps missing High Court hearings about her bankruptcy

26 April 2024, 14:16 | Updated: 26 April 2024, 16:44

Katie Price could be arrested and sent to prison if she keeps missing bankruptcy hearings, a court has heard.

The former glamour model was declared bankrupt in November 2019 and again this March over an unpaid tax bill.

She missed that hearing because she was "dealing with serious stuff".

On Friday, the 45-year-old did not appear at a specialist bankruptcy court in London to answer further questions about her finances.

Less than 24 hours before the hearing at the High Court, Price provided evidence saying she could not attend for medical reasons, which a judge described as "scanty".

At the hearing that still went ahead in her absence, she was told she could be arrested for contempt of court, which can carry a prison sentence of up to two years, if she does not have a good enough excuse for missing future dates.

Ahead of Friday's hearing, her personal assistant sent a statement from a consultant psychiatrist saying she had anxiety and depression, meaning she could not attend and asked for it to be delayed at least six months.

Barristers for the trustees of Ms Price's first bankruptcy asked the judge to order she attend in person for the next hearing and said she should be "on notice" that she could be arrested if she did not turn up.

Darragh Connell, representing the trustees, told the court there could be "severe consequences", adding: "It is important that she is on notice of the fact that this is a possibility."

In written submissions, he said: "The respondent should be in no doubt that any future non-attendance without a reasonable excuse will constitute contempt of court and necessitate an application for a warrant for her arrest."

Alex Reid, her former husband, did attend the hearing and made notes throughout.

Mr Connell said Ms Price had been aware of the hearing "for a considerable period of time" and her evidence "simply is not good enough".

He told the court: "It is clear that the evidence filed very late is of a variety that is deeply, deeply unsatisfactory and we are in a very serious situation as a consequence.

"In these circumstances, there is deep concern from the trustees that what is happening here is an attempt at the 11th hour to kick things off into the long grass and that should not be allowed to happen."

Judge Mark Mullen, of the Insolvency and Companies Court, said "similarly brief" letters had been sent before previous court hearings which Ms Price also did not attend.

He described the court as "sympathetic" to people with health conditions, but there was "a consistent pattern of last-minute adjournments" that "can't be allowed to drag on in such an unsatisfactory basis".

Judge Mullen ordered Ms Price to attend the next hearing unless she gave a reasonable excuse and that she must give medical information with plenty of time to make necessary arrangements.

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At a hearing in February, Price was ordered to pay 40 per cent of her monthly income from the adult website OnlyFans to trustees for the next three years, in relation to her first bankruptcy.

In March, she was declared bankrupt for a second time due to an unpaid tax bill worth more than £750,000 owed to HM Revenue & Customs.

Last October, Price said she was "fed up" with being threatened with legal action and would go to prison to be "done with it all".

Speaking to Michelle Visage on her BBC Radio 2 Rule Breakers podcast, Ms Price discussed her bankruptcy and said she had recently been to court "more times than I've had hot dinners" and would "genuinely" not care if she was jailed.

During a hearing in October 2020, Ms Price apologised to the court, saying: "I just haven't been able to deal with these issues or in the right mental state to understand everything that has been going on."

(c) Sky News 2024: Katie Price threatened with jail if she keeps missing High Court hearings about her bankruptcy